This article explores the case of product development for insights into the potential role of knowledge management. Current literature on knowledge management entertains the notion that knowledge management is a specific set of practices – separate enough to allow specialization of responsibility. By common standard, the proclaimed responsibility of knowledge management is shared knowledge, saved learning costs and coordinated action in an organization. The significance of the practices of knowledge management is the intention of shared knowledge, saved learning costs and coordinated action.

This report contains the major results from a study of management development in Danish
organizations. The study is part of a European research project with participation of
Denmark, the U.K, France, Norway, Rumania, Spain, and Germany. The project is part of
the so-called Leonardo program the purpose of which is to further cross-country
competence development and collaboration within the European educational sector. The
first phase of the project is a quantitative interview study of one hundred organizations in
each of the participating countries. The second phase consists in qualitative case studies
in selected organizations in each of the countries. In Denmark one hundred and one
organizations have participated in the study.
Identical questionnaires and interviews are conducted in all of the mentioned countries and
the huge amount of data is analyzed in each country and across countries. The findings
will be published in books, journals and newspaper articles. Hopefully the findings of the
large European project will thus affect the way in which educational institutions and
organizations manage the "Europeanization" of management development.
The present report solely describes significant findings from the questionnaire study
conducted in Denmark. Two hundred and two managers have participated, that is two from
each organization. We thank the contributing organizations without which it would not have
been possible to generate this picture of management development in Danish
organizations.
The Department of Organization and Industrial Sociology at the Copenhagen Business
School is the Danish partner in the project. The project has been conducted by Camilla
Leth in collaboration with Ilse Kristensen, Mette Gundersen and Lea Green under the
supervision of Henrik Holt Larsen. Anne-Mette Hjalager has contributed to the preparation
of the report.

The paper has a dual purpose. First, we suggest that entrepreneurs in their establishment of new businesses draw on a range of pre-existing socially embedded routines for creating acceptance by their environment. Also they draw upon external resources that are used in patterning specific practices. This ability is treated as entrepreneurial assets. Secondly, we argue that the existence and patterning of these socially embedded routines used in new business development are contingent on the institutional context. We see the institutional context as complex and fragmented, composed and shaped by different institutional domains: the normative, the cognitive and the regulatory domain.

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This article contributes to the emerging body of work in organisational theory that seeks to include materiality in conceptualising processes of organizing (e.g. Law, 1994; Doolin, 2003; Czarniawska and Gustavsson, 2004; Dale, 2005). Using the four largest multinational oil companies’ green transition towards renewable energies as a case the article integrates material aspects into the theory on the narration of organisational identities. Following Czarniawska (1997) the concept of organisational identity is viewed as an evolving organisational narrative. Following Law (1994) this organisational narrative is then conceptualised as a socio-technical narrative. The article describes how oil related technologies and their accompanying symbolic meaning and technical oil related standards can be conceptualised as part of the enduring aspects in oil companies’ organisational identities. The article concludes to that end that both social and material aspects add to the endurance of organisational identities.
Key words. Identity narration; materiality; greening of oil companies; climate change.

In recent years, intervention studies have become increasingly popular within occupational health psychology. The vast majority of such studies have focused on interventions themselves and their effects on the working environment and employee health and well-being. Few studies have focused on how the context and processes surrounding the intervention may have influenced the outcomes (Hurrell and Murphy, 1996). Thus, there is still relatively little published research that provides us with information on how to evaluate such strategies and processes (Saksvik, Nytrø, Dahl-Jørgensen, and Mikkelsen, 2002). This paper describes how organisation theory can be used to develop a method for identifying and analysing processes in relation to the implementation of work environment interventions. The reason for using organisation theory is twofold: 1) interventions are never implemented in a vacuum but in a specific organisational context (workplace) with certain characteristics, that the organisation theory can capture, 2) within the organisational sociological field there is a long tradition for studying organisational changes such as workplace interventions. In this paper process is defined as "individual, collective or management perceptions and actions in implementing any intervention and their influence on the overall result of the intervention" (Nytrø, Saksvik, Mikkelsen, Bohle, and Quinlan, 2000). Process evaluation can be used to a) provide feedback for improving interventions, b) interpret the outcomes of effect evaluation and c) replicate interventions in other settings minimising the number of pitfalls associated with a given intervention (Goldenhar et al., 2001).

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Cognitive limitations and possibilities in managerial views on promoting gender equality in the IT sector

Mathieu, Christopher John(København, 2005)

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Abstract:

This paper examines how basic cognitive processes lead to the non-recognition of processes that lead to or sustain gender inequality in the Information technology sector. The paper is based on empirical research carried out in Sweden and Ireland from 2001-2004. The central thesis is that "delusions" about gender equality in the IT sector are sustained by positional factors (governing what one can see from a vantage point and what type of data one can, and one is encouraged to, gather and process); ideological factors (how information is "fit" into pre-existing frameworks to which one has political or organizational commitments) and more rudimentary processes of "optical socialization" (Zerubavel) and "good reasons for holding false beliefs" (Boudon). A series of "delusions" found in empirical research are described and analysed. The paper concludes by sketching out how such cognitive hindrances and barriers can be overcome within organizations, and how this could lead to a greater recognition of the processes facilitating or causing gender inequality in a branch that frequently sees itself as "gender neutral" as well as measures to actively promote gender equality.
Keywords: gender inequality, Information Technology, management, delusions, cognition

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The aim of this work is to conduct a theoretical and empirical investigation of how the market
institution performs in the context of technology and knowledge transfer. The notion of political
markets, first introduced by Adam Smith, is extended to the artifacts of technology and their
associated factor markets. The paper develops the notion of political markets by drawing upon an
empirical case that reconstructs the chain of events related to the transfer of flexible manufacturing
systems (FMS). The case account for the various actors and institutions involved in the technology
transfer, including the firms on both sides of the market, the government, the engineering-scientists,
the economists, the union representatives and the machinists.
It is argued that Natural markets is a special case of political markets in which technologies and
hybrid entities and identities produce both the Natural market as well as its master – the pure
technological relations. Neither the Natural market, nor Homo economicus can be brought into
existence without pure technological relations. The existence of the latter is a necessary condition
for the existence of the two former, as has already been recognized by neoclassical economics. The
present work makes a constructive contribution to neoclassical economics in this respect, by
describing and analyzing all the work of purification that enters into the task of bringing the
necessary conditions into existence. Indeed, the process of purification that brings purified
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technologies, natural markets and rational identities like homo economicus into existence, require
huge investments, as do their maintenance. Technical knowledge turned out to be no exception. As
the case suggests, technical knowledge was not just a given condition, but became a produced
outcome. Yet, the process of knowledge production continued, transforming given technical
knowledge in unexpected ways. Technical knowledge also became a negotiated outcome during the
transfer of FMS. Hence, when market transaction takes place, knowledge it self can be transformed,
and with it, the conditions for conducting the market transaction. So, the notion of political markets
proposed here, suggests that knowledge can be both premises as well as an outcome of market
transaction – as knowledge, its status and distribution - can be negotiated in the process.
Instead of criticizing Homo economicus and (neo) classical economics, the notion of political
markets thus proposed imply a constructive contribution to economics, notably to the core of neo
classical economics:
Through out this paper, it is argued with reference to both theory and own empirical fieldwork, that
neoclassical economics participate in the successful purification of technological relations. Yet, in
order to provide for an explanation of such a successful outcome, it is not enough to account for
economists among themselves. As has already been suggested by Callon (1998) and the associated
work on the anthropology of markets, also such material associations as computer based
calculations and simulations of the macro-economy must be brought into the explanation. In more
specific terms, the puzzling ‘residual’ in the neoclassical production function can be explained by
now also taking into account the many subtle ways economics itself interfere in making up the
residual. Neoclassical economics only have to refine their production function by adding to it the
significance of material associations such as computer based calculations and simulations of the
macro-economy. Done properly, a revised macro-economic model would emerge, capable of
handling ‘market failures’ in new ways. Instead of attributing all failures to the market and no
failures to technology, a more symmetric distribution of failures between the two entities would be
allowed for. Further more, each time a ‘residual’ emerges from applying the revised model, it is no
longer simply due to ‘technical change’ but also due to ‘market failures’. Hence, such a revised
macro-economic model not only allow neoclassical economics to maintain the distinction between
technology and the market but also allows for the flexibility of including those entities previously
excluded, that is, the material associations and inscriptions that participates in making up the
distinctions between the two.